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GNOME Foundation announces embedded initiative

A new mobile and embedded computing initiative announced by the GNOME …

Developers of the open-source GNOME desktop environment announced last week the establishment of the GNOME Mobile and Embedded Initiative (GMAE), which aims to promote development and adoption of GNOME software components in mobile and embedded computing contexts. Developers hope that the new initiative will facilitate collaboration between the GNOME development community and companies that are building embedded computing products that incorporate various components of GNOME's underlying infrastructure.

The GNOME platform is a cohesive assortment of high-level software building blocks designed to expedite Linux application development. The complete spectrum of GNOME technologies can be used together to build feature-rich applications with minimal effort. Companies are increasingly adopting GNOME for mobile development, and several open-source projects have emerged to create cohesive GNOME-based mobile platforms. Various GNOME technologies are used extensively in the Linux-based software systems that power Nokia's 770 and N800 web tablet products, the One Laptop Per Child project's XO laptop, FIC's Neo1973 mobile phone, and products that use the Access Linux Platform.

Participants hope that the GMAE initiative will lead to better upstream collaboration by improving communication between GNOME technology stakeholders, promoting standardization between disparate GNOME-based mobile platforms, and reducing duplication of effort. It is also likely that the GMAE initiative will make it easier for the GNOME desktop platform to reap the benefits of commercial investment in mobile GNOME technologies.

Open-source software is becoming a popular choice in the embedded computing market as vendors discover the unique advantages of the Linux operating system, a robust and highly scalable platform that is well-suited for deployment in mobile devices. Open-source software adoption is primarily driven by increased flexibility and lower licensing costs, but there are other advantages as well. The broad availability of existing open-source drivers and software components simplifies the process of rolling together a custom Linux platform for mobile devices and embedded hardware products.

One of the challenges associated with mobile Linux development is the difficulty of adapting existing open source graphical toolkits so that they can be used to build user interfaces that are appropriate for mobile devices. The GMAE initiative could help resolve that problem and could make GNOME an important part of the growing ecosystem of open source technologies that enable rapid embedded development.

Linux-based mobile platforms are quickly displacing proprietary solutions offered by companies like Symbian. According to Jerry Panagrossi, Symbian's vice president of US operations, the company's "primary competition today is the homegrown operating systems from handset manufacturers," rather than "the Windows mobile market, which is still very small." Panagrossi cites platform portability and the availability of multiple user interfaces as major advantages of the Symbian platform. The open and modular nature of the Linux operating system ensures that it also provides the same advantages. Unlike Symbian, which isn't designed for desktop use, mobile Linux platforms can benefit from broad the availability of third-party desktop applications that can be ported for use in mobile environments. It is worth noting that the GMAE initiative compounds that advantage by creating a glidepath between desktop and mobile deployment targets for GNOME applications.

The GMAE initiative is a bold step in the right direction, but there are some impediments that will have to be overcome in order for the project to succeed. Although the initiative's goals are well defined, the information currently available doesn't provide much insight into how the GNOME Foundation plans to work towards those goals. The GNOME community will have to work hard to find ways to make it easier for employees of Linux-based embedded device makers to become active upstream contributors. One problem that the GNOME Foundation won't have is getting buy-in from major stakeholders. Representatives from Intel, Nokia, Access, FIC, Canonical, Red Hat, OpenedHand, and many other companies have all expressed support for the initiative.

Some technical details for those who care about such things

The GNOME Embedded Platform is a diverse stack of open source, mobile application development technologies that includes the GTK toolkit for interface construction, the GConf application configuration service which leverages XML for data persistence, the extensible GnomeVFS file access abstraction layer which provides support for network transparent file manipulation, the highly flexible GStreamer multimedia framework which supports dynamic media editing as well as playback, the powerful D-Bus interprocess communication system, the BlueZ Bluetooth stack, the nascent Telepathy instant messaging and presence management framework, and the Avahi service for Zeroconf service discovery.

I was somewhat surprised to discover that OpenedHand's Clutter toolkit and Fluendo's Pigment toolkit were not referenced or addressed anywhere in any of the material I read about the GNOME Embedded Platform. Although Clutter and Pigment are both relatively new and untested technologies, both appear to have considerable value and potential for rich user interface development in the context of embedded platforms. If Mirco Muller's recentexperiments or the Elisa media center application's visually impressive interface are any indication, Clutter and Pigment could both vastly simplify development of attractive user interfaces for multimedia set-top boxes.

Java Mobile Edition, FreeDesktop.org's Hardware Abstraction Layer, and Philip Van Hoof's Tinymail project are all listed as technologies that are being considered for future inclusion in the GNOME Embedded Platform.